IOC

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has expressed hope that whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova can switch nationality from Russia and represent another country at Tokyo 2020.

Bach said that he had met with and had a “friendly discussion” with Stepanova and her husband, Vitaly Stepanov, a former Russian Anti-Doping Agency employee, and revealed that the IOC are providing her with unspecified support.

The husband and wife duo have taken up residence at an unknown location in North America due to having to flee Russia after they provided evidence of state-sponsored doping in 2014.

Their allegations, made to German television channel ARD, led directly to an International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) investigation, which resulted in Russia being banned in November 2015.

They also indirectly set into motion a chain of further revelations, principally made by another whistleblower in former Moscow Laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, which culminated in the IOC decision here on Tuesday (December 5) to make Russian athletes compete neutrally – under the name “Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR) – at Pyeongchang 2018.

“I have met, a couple of months ago, with Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov,” Bach said here.

“We have exchanged our positions and had a very good and, in the end, friendly discussion.

“This resulted in the IOC supporting Vitaly Stepanov and we are benefitting from his advice on anti-doping matters with regard to Russia.

“We’re also supporting Yuliya Stepanova and hope that she can find a new NOC which would allow her then to qualify for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.”

The IOC received much criticism last year for their refusal to allow Stepanova – who previously served a two-year doping ban – to compete as an independent athlete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, despite the IAAF having allowed the middle distance runner to participate internationally.

This was because she had “long implication in a doping system” and supposedly did “not satisfy the ethical requirements for an athlete to enter the Olympic Games”.

Stepanov claimed during an August 2016 teleconference that the IOC had offered them “no support” and sought to use the situation only to benefit their “own position”.

Bach, however, refused to apologise for the way they treated Stepanova last year given that he has now accepted neutral participation.

“The conditions are very different and you cannot compare this situation with Yuliya Stepanova with the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee,” he said.

insidethegames exclusively revealed in October 2016 that Stepanov would be providing a consultancy service to the IOC on all aspects of doping control and the protection of clean athletes.

The Stepanovs have welcomed the latest IOC decision towards Russia.

“I’d like to thank the IOC and its commission for actually, in my view, a fair decision,” Stepanov told USA Today.

“I’d also like to thank Grigory Rodchenkov and other whistleblowers for exposing the truth and trying to expose the corrupt system in Russia.

“Even as of [Monday] a lot of people felt that the IOC would not be able to do this.

“I understand that it’s a compromise, but…as the people running the global Olympic Movement, they have to look for compromises all the time.”

Former bob athlete John Jackson has expressed his support for the International Olympic Committee’s decision to effectively ban Russia from the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Jackson and the rest of his GB four-man crew are in line to receive a retrospective bronze medal from Sochi 2014 after two Russian crews that finished ahead of them were disqualified for doping by the International Olympic Committee last week.

The IOC announced on Monday that there will be no Russian flags or anthems in Pyeongchang, and only Russians who can prove they have not cheated – verified by credible anti-doping agencies – will be invited to take part.

Jackson told Press Association Sport: “I always said the IOC should ban Russia as a nation and their flag should not be seen in Pyeongchang, but any athlete who can prove they are clean should be allowed to compete.

“It is going to be quite difficult to prove or disprove their eligibility but as an athlete, all you can ask is that you are allowed to compete on a level playing field to everyone else.”

The issue of Russian eligibility is particularly pertinent within the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, who have twice issued provisional suspensions to the Russian athletes banned by the IOC, only to have to lift their sanctions based on legal advice.

A number of those banned Russians – including Alexander Kasjanov, whose ban by the IOC last week effectively facilitated Jackson’s rise to bronze – are competing in the IBSF World Cup in Winterberg this weekend.

“It’s a difficult one and I imagine the atmosphere at the track might sometimes get a little bit uncomfortable,” Jackson said. “But as an athlete you’ve just got to focus on getting on with business and leave the rest to the bodies concerned.”

The British Olympic Association also backed the move, calling it “the right decision”. The BOA chairman, Sir Hugh Robertson, said: “We take no pleasure in the outcome of the IOC Commissions.

However, the IOC has taken the right decision.”

If Jackson’s bronze medal is ratified, it will make Sochi 2014 the most successful Winter Olympics in British history, eclipsing the four medals won at the inaugural event in Chamonix in 1924. A number of British athletes, most notably the reigning Olympic skeleton gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold, have led the fight for fairness in the wake of the McLaren report into state-sponsored doping.

And BOA Athletes’ Commission chairman Ben Hawes said he hoped the decision would provide some solace to athletes such as Jackson who were denied their moments of glory in Sochi. Hawes said: “Based on the findings of the independent reports commissioned by the IOC we believe this ban is the correct and appropriate outcome. We are optimistic this decision will send a clear message to both athletes and officials who have cheated.

“We now place great importance on the work of the IOC panel to determine clean athletes to compete in PyeongChang 2018, and in doing so hope they give our athletes the confidence that they line up in a clean competition against the best in the world. Our disappointment still remains for those athletes robbed of medals and precious moments in Sochi 2014 and other Olympic Games.”

The World Olympians Association also welcomed the IOC’s decision, but stressed the rights of Russian athletes untainted by doping should not be compromised.

In a statement, the WOA said: “World Olympians Association welcomes the decision made by the IOC executive board and the due process followed to ensure the individual rights of clean athletes are protected.

“World Olympians Association takes the fight against doping extremely seriously and is determined to see cheats driven out to ensure a level playing field for all Olympians.

“But we reiterate our stance that, where possible, individual justice should be applied to ensure clean athletes are not unfairly punished.”

Russia has been banned from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in an historic decision by the International Olympic Committee – although some Russian athletes will be allowed to compete under a neutral flag.

The IOC also handed a lifetime ban to the country’s deputy prime minister, Vitaly Mutko, preventing him from having any involvement in the Olympic Games, and has ordered the Russian government to pay $15m towards a new Independent Testing Authority and reimburse the cost of their investigations.

The head of the IOC, Thomas Bach, revealed the decision in a press conference in Lausanne, Switzerland on Tuesday. “This was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport,” he said of Russia’s sophisticated doping system.

“The IOC, after following due process, has issued proportional sanctions for this systemic manipulation while protecting the clean athletes. This should draw a line under this damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping system led by WADA.

As an athlete myself, I feel very sorry for all the clean athletes from all NOCs who are suffering from this manipulation. Working with the IOC Athletes’ Commission, we will now look for opportunities to make up for the moments they have missed on the finish line or on the podium.”

Russia was barred from London’s Athletics World Championships this year in the wake of the McLaren report, which revealed details of a state-sponsored doping programme which had been in place for many years.

And the follow-up Schmid report confirmed a “systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia” with a lack of major effort to address the issue, forcing the IOC to take action.

In his findings, the IOC commission chairman Samuel Schmid found that doping was fully endorsed by the Russian sports ministry, of which Vladimir Putin’s deputy Mutko was in charge up until October 2016.

Pressure will now grow on Fifa to take action over Mutko, who heads up Russia’s 2018 World Cup team as president of the football union.

Putin is expected to respond in the next 24 hours with the possibility that Russia will decide to boycott the Winter Olympics and withdraw any competitors from taking part as authorised neutral athletes.

The IOC’s ban for subverting anti-doping rules is unprecedented, although there have been other cases in which countries have not been invited to compete.

Germany and Japan were not invited to the Games following the World Wars. South Africa saw its invitation rescinded for the 1964 Olympics after failing to denounce apartheid.

Less than a week before the International Olympic Committee leadership decides how to sanction Russia for a massive, years-long doping conspiracy, whistleblower Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov has told ESPN via emailed comments that “serious” discipline should be imposed, while leaving the door open for some athletes to participate in the upcoming PyeongChang 2018 Games.

“Innocent” athletes should “be able to compete at least under a neutral flag,” Rodchenkov said in comments forwarded by his New York-based lawyer, Jim Walden. But, Rodchenkov added, Russia needs to take “a serious first step toward reform and redemption.”

“I wish Tuesday began with a confession and apology from Russia, which would give the world confidence they might embrace truth and reform,” Rodchenkov said, referring to the day the IOC executive board has said it will announce a decision on the country’s eligibility for PyeongChang at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“This is not the Russian way. If they are not disciplined seriously, they will be laughing at the IOC behind closed doors and plotting their next caper.”

Rodchenkov is currently under the protection of federal authorities. Walden agreed to send several short, concise questions from ESPN to Rodchenkov by email, and relayed the answers back, also by email.

The former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory was the chief architect of a scheme to help Russian athletes use performance-enhancing drugs and evade positive tests in the lead-up to and competition at the Sochi 2014 Games.

He fled Russia in late 2015 after being fired amid intense scrutiny of corruption revealed by whistleblowers, media reports and a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation, and after the sudden death of a friend and colleague who formerly headed the Russian Anti-Doping Agency.

In interviews with the New York Times and investigators including Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, who was commissioned by WADA to do an independent report, Rodchenkov directly implicated officials from the Ministry of Sport and RUSADA in the conspiracy, which he has said was facilitated by the FSB, Russia’s security agency.

Rodchenkov’s credibility as a witness was recently reinforced by a written decision issued by the IOC’s Oswald Commission stripping Russian cross-Country skier Alexander Legkov of his Sochi medals and banning him from future Olympic competition.

“Whichever wrongdoing he may have committed in the past, Dr. Rodchenkov was telling the truth when he provided explanations of the cover-up scheme that he managed,” the commission concluded.

Rodchenkov told ESPN he wants Russia to, “Admit the truth of McLaren’s report and give WADA access to stored samples and the lab’s back-up data. This is what the [WADA] Roadmap requires.”

WADA recently decided to continue RUSADA’s non-compliant status, triggering a continued suspension of the Russian track and field federation. The International Paralympic Committee has said it will bar the Russian team from the Winter Paralympic Games.

The scandal exposed grave weaknesses in the will and ability of the IOC and WADA to deal with government-enabled organized doping. In the email exchange, ESPN asked Rodchenkov, “What was the world’s biggest single missed opportunity for exposing the ‘Sochi Plan’ before it happened?”

He replied: “Russia was absolutely confident it wouldn’t be caught. The plan was unimaginable – opening bottles, swapping urine, using cocktail for doping. It looked like a fantasy. It was brazen and the only way to have stopped it was if our lab had lost it(s) accreditation earlier. This is why WADA should have open access to LIMS [laboratory information management systems].”

An electronic database from the Moscow lab, which has results from 2012-15, was not made available to WADA by Russian officials, but was instead conveyed by an unspecified whistleblower a matter of weeks ago.

Rhetoric against Rodchenkov from Russia has escalated in recent days, and a court there issued an arrest warrant for him in September.

Russian athletes still hope to be able to compete at next year’s International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Indoor Championships in Birmingham as neutrals following the decision to extend their ban.

The IAAF announced last Saturday (November 25) that they would not lift Russia’s suspension first imposed in November 2015 following allegations of state-sponsored doping in a report produced by a commission headed by International Olympic Committee (IOC) member and former President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Richard Pound.

Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) President Dmitry Shlyakhtin had been expecting the decision after WADA had refused to recognise the Russian Anti-Doping Agency as being compliant at its meeting in Seoul last month.

Two more Russian athletes have failed drugs tests from the London 2012 Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee has announced.

Anna Nazarova, who finished fifth in the women’s long jump, and the 400 metres runner Yulia Gushchina have both been disqualified from their respective competitions.

Gushchina finished 15th in the individual event and won silver in the 4x400m relay. That is a medal which has already been stripped from Russia after a previous doping case involving Gushchina’s team-mate Antonina Krivoshapka.

The IOC, led by Thomas Bach, have been retesting samples from London 2012

The results were part of a re-test of samples from almost 600 athletes at the Games, in line with the findings of the McLaren Report in December 2016.

The latest results mean that of 226 samples taken specifically from Russian athletes, 21 have been deemed worthy of sanction by the IOC’s disciplinary commission.

Both Nazarova and Gushchina tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid turinabol, while Gushchina also tested positive for stanozolol.

In each case, the IOC said: “The Russian Olympic Committee shall ensure full implementation of this decision”.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is to rule against reinstating its Russian counterpart (RUSADA), after it was declared still “non-compliant” with the WADA code following a meeting of its foundation board on Thursday.

“WADA Foundation Board approves the recommendation by the Independent Compliance Review Committee that RUSADA remain non-compliant,” WADA wrote on Twitter.

Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov denounced the decision by WADA’s Foundation Board, saying that the two roadmap demands Russia did not meet, according to the ruling, are politicized. Those are to acknowledge an existence of a state-sponsored doping program in Russia, and to provide access for WADA officers to the sealed Moscow laboratory

“These two demands are obviously of a political nature,” Kolobkov said, as cited by R-Sport.

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Alexander Zhukov, suggested that the Compliance Review Committee chaired by Jonathan Taylor is devising false pretexts to keep RUSADA suspended.

“Taylor’s committee has been inventing reasons not to reinstate RUSADA; the accusations against RUSADA are simply a joke!” Zhukov said, as cited by R-Sport.

In addition to Russia, the board also declared Guinea, Kuwait and Mauritius non-compliant.

Earlier, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko stated that no matter what WADA decided on RUSADA’s status, it will not affect Russia’s participation in the Olympics, as the latter is “a prerogative of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), not WADA.”

A decision on Russia may be made at the next IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne scheduled for December 5. At the meeting, the members are expected to review a report into the alleged state-sanctioned doping system in Russia by a commission led by Swiss politician Samuel Schmid.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was initially declared non-compliant with the WADA code following a damning report by WADA’s Independent Commission in November 2015, that alleged a widespread and systematic use of performance enhancing drugs by Russian athletes. As a result, the Russian track and field team was banned from the 2016 Rio Olympics and RUSADA was stripped of its international accreditation.

WADA later laid out a roadmap for RUSADA to be reinstated, with one of the key demands being that Russia must publicly accept the findings of the WADA-commissioned investigation by Richard McLaren of July 2016, implying an existence of a state-sponsored doping system in Russia.

The second part of the report, released in December 2016, claimed that over 1,000 Russian athletes including summer, winter and Paralympic competitors were involved in the state-sponsored doping scheme. Without disclosing any names, McLaren then claimed that samples of 12 Russian medalists from 2014 Sochi Olympics were tampered with.

In the wake of the report, an International Olympic Committee Disciplinary Commission chaired by Denis Oswald was established to re-analyze the samples for traces of potential foul play. Based on the commission’s findings early November, the IOC annulled the results of six Russian skiers in Sochi and barred them from competing in any future Winter Olympic games. IOC pointed to the anti-doping rules violations allegedly committed by the athletes, without specifying their kind.

Among those banned is the winner of men’s 50km marathon Alexander Legkov, Maxim Vylegzhanin, a silver medalist in men’s team sprint and marathon, as well as Evgeniy Belov, Evgenia Shapovalova, Julia Ivanova and Alexey Petukhov.

Vylegzhanin and Legkov have announced they are appealing the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), with the president of Russia’s Cross-Country Skiing Federation, Elena Valbe, telling RT that the organization will “fight until the last drop of blood” to prove the innocence of the skiers.

In June, RUSADA, was granted permission to run and plan tests in Russia for the first time since its suspension, although under oversight of international WADA experts and the officers of the UK Anti-Doping Agency (UKAD).

WADA Director General Olivier Niggli, who visited RUSADA Moscow headquarters in July, commended the changes that have been made by the organization to meet the WADA criteria, saying that it “goes in the right direction.”

In August, Mutko said he did not see any problems for Russia in implementing the WADA criteria. He admitted that while there were some failures within the Russian anti-doping system, no state-run doping program designed to arrange and cover up the usage of banned substances ever existed in Russia.

Two Russian athletes have admitted taking banned performance-enhancing substances given to them by Grigory Rodchenkov, the scientist who says he orchestrated a massive state-sponsored doping programme before the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

The Russian authorities deny a state-sponsored doping programme existed but Rodchenkov, who headed Russia’s main anti-doping laboratory from 2005 to 2015, says at least 14 medal winners took part and that tainted urine samples from Russian athletes were substituted for clean ones to help them pass drug tests at the Games.

This is the first time any Russian athletes have confessed to using doping cocktails supplied by Rodchenkov, who fled to the United States last year.

The anonymous athletes told Match TV, Russia’s biggest sports channel, that the substances were supplied to them by Rodchenkov in unmarked pill containers, dissolved in the mouth and washed down with alcohol.

“They weren’t to be used every day but whenever I felt I was tired, so as to speed up the recovery process,” one of the athletes told the Kremlin-funded TV channel. “The effect was very powerful.”

An athletics manager, also speaking anonymously, told the TV channel that the substances were provided to “elite” athletes. A third athlete said she only pretended to take the banned substances and that she was unaware of their exact contents.

The athletes interviewed did not allege, however, that Russian officials other than Rodchenkov were involved in doping. “Doping was a business for Rodchenkov and one he had been involved in for many years,” Sergey Lisin, the author of the Match TV report, told the Guardian. “My sources did not claim this was a government-run doping programme.” Lisin denied his report was an attempt to discredit Rodchenkov.

Russia’s investigative committee said this week that Rodchenkov destroyed the drug test samples of Russian athletes and that Russia intends to seek his extradition from the US. Investigators also said they had found no evidence of a Kremlin-backed doping system.

Two investigations commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency in 2015 and 2016 revealed widespread state-sponsored doping in Russia. The International Olympic Committee is due to decide next month on whether to allow Russian athletes to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. Russia is currently barred from international athletics.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has admitted that the country was unsuccessful in its attempt to tackle the use of performance-enhancing steroids, but denied the existence of a state-sponsored doping programme. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Rodchenkov’s allegations “slander by a turncoat”. Vitaly Mutko, the deputy prime minister, said the accusations were part of an international effort to discredit Russian sport.

Meanwhile, four more Russian cross-country skiers, including the Olympic silver medallist Maxim Vylegzhanin, were found guilty on Thursday of doping at the Sochi Olympics by the IOC. The Russian cross-country ski federation said the four have been disqualified by the IOC and banned from all future Olympics.

The other three skiers found guilty are Alexei Petukhov, Yulia Ivanova and Evgenia Shapovalova. Vylegzhanin won three silver medals in Sochi, but none of the others were medallists.

Six Russian cross-country skiers have now been found guilty of doping at the Sochi Olympics by an IOC commission. Alexander Legkov, who won gold in the 50km race ahead of Vylegzhanin in a Russian sweep, and Evgeniy Belov were banned last week.

Four-time Olympic silver medallist Frankie Fredericks has been suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after being charged with money laundering and corruption.

Fredericks, 50, was charged by the French authorities last week.

He was accused of accepting a bribe of $299,300 (£230,000) from the son of ex-IAAF president Lamine Diack when Rio won the vote to host the 2016 Olympics.

The IOC suspended him on Tuesday citing “the impact on the IOC’s reputation”.

The IOC’s executive board said in a statement: “Considering the gravity and urgency of the situation and its impact on the reputation of the IOC, the IOC executive board decides to suspend Mr Frank Fredericks from all the rights, prerogatives and functions deriving from his quality as an IOC member.”

Namibian Fredericks, who was a member of the IAAF council and a prominent figure within the IOC, claims the money was legitimate payment for consultancy and promotional work for athletics’ governing body.

He was provisionally suspended from the IAAF in July, when the organisation’s Athletic Integrity Unit opened an investigation into the matter.

He won Olympic silver medals in the 100m and 200m at both Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996. He also won gold in the 200m at the World Championships in 1993.

Fredericks was the chair of the 2024 Olympic bid evaluation committee when the allegations were made, but stepped down in March following the accusations.

He also left his position in the IAAF task force, which was responsible for evaluating Russia’s return to the sport after its doping scandals.

Former world champion sprinter Frankie Fredericks appeared before a Paris judge on Thursday as part of a probe into graft allegations over the awarding of the 2016 Olympics to Rio.

Fredericks, an International Olympics Committee (IOC) member, received $299,300 (262,000 euros) from Papa Massata Diack, son of ex-International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Lamine Diack, on October 2, 2009 — the day Brazil won the bid.

The IOC said in July that it was cooperating with French authorities investigating the allegations against the Namibian former 200m world champion and four-time Olympic silver medallist.

The 50-year-old stepped down in March as head of the committee evaluating bids to host the 2024 Olympics after the corruption allegations were reported in French media.

Fredericks insists that the payments were received for promotional services provided between 2007 and 2011 under a contract signed on March 11, 2007, and had nothing to do with the Olympics.

The payment was first revealed by French newspaper Le Monde. Fredericks released a statement at the time, saying: “I categorically deny any direct or indirect involvement in any untoward conduct and confirm that I have never breached any law, regulation or rule of ethics in respect of any IOC election process.”

French investigators are looking into the possibility that bribes were paid over the awarding of both the 2016 Olympics to Rio and the 2020 Tokyo Games.The IAAF provisionally suspended Fredericks from its ruling council on July 17 as it launched a probe into the graft allegations against him.

In March, Fredericks had also stepped down from an IAAF task force working on getting doping-tainted Russia back into global sport.

Papa Massata and Lamine Diack also face charges in France over millions of dollars paid to cover up doping failures by Russian athletes.Brazilian authorities are also conducting an investigation into vote buying in the attribution of the 2016 Games to Rio.

Brazilian Olympic Committee chairman Carlos Nuzman has been charged with corruption over allegations he and former Rio mayor Sergio Cabral solicited a payment from a Brazilian businessman to Papa Massata Diack to secure votes for the election of Rio.

Businessman Arthur Soares allegedly paid $2 million to Diack just three days before the IOC vote in Copenhagen in 2009 in which Rio won the right to host the Games.Cabral is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence for bribery and money laundering while Soares is on the run.